


Hurricane

by ateliertamsin



Category: The Book Group (TV)
Genre: Janice McCann deserves a helluva lot more love than she receives, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Available, a look into awareness or a lack therefore of, dark story to a degree, end of series, tw alcohol, tw depression, tw food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ateliertamsin/pseuds/ateliertamsin
Summary: She sips wine for her confession. But it isn't to God. She confesses to herself.A short story of Janice McCann, in all her love and tragedy.//Text and Podfic.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Hurricane

Hurricane

* * *

  
_(or click[here](https://soundcloud.com/user-17473441/hurricane) for mobile streaming)_

* * *

What happens when you’re in the eye of a hurricane? When you’re in the eye of a Glaswegian social disaster, as your friends (you think they’re friends) rush past you, brushing and bumping shoulders, and leaving you trying to reach out and hit with debris if you go too far.

_Was she okay?_

No. Of course not. 

Janice. Tired. Looking around desperately to catch someone to speak to and be heard. But another broken heart nearly cuts her on its way around the orbit, and she’s holding her arms close now. 

Jean looks at her with pure pity above any trace of compassion. Hands the woman pills of all things. Was she really so numb to others? Well, at least Janice will be too, soon enough. 

_You would think,_ Janice tells herself, the three tablets growing sweaty in her hands, _that being in this eye of such a hurricane means that you’d at least avoid all the pain and that you’d maybe, hopefully, come out unscathed._

What a lie. 

She was the worst kind of destructive, she realizes. She was the sort who stood and watched them all and instead of joining them in their ruin, she ruined herself. She was self-destructive and awful. She would inflict her own emotional damage. Was that her price for sinning. It seemed fair enough, with the lack of love she felt. That maybe her getting a nod of acknowledgement was worth a little sin. But perhaps she misjudged.

“Janice, Stop!”

Was that Rab? Clare? Kenny? Where any of them beating against her brain and trying to help her? Trying so hard to save her from this odd void where she was acutely aware of everything but felt like she could not feel anything she so dared to touch? She is suffocating. It isn’t the overwhelming feeling of drowning that she fears, but the underwhelming feeling of not having enough oxygen. Of too much space. Of this vacuum that wants, so hard, to claim her. Just sucking the life of her. The heart and the tears.

She realizes--she’s having a lot of those--that the voice that was screaming at her was her own. Trying to break through this mist that clouds her crystal blue eyes. Intense. Unwavering. But also watery, sad, and confused. 

Clare regarded her with disinterest at first. Her irritation with Janice just trying--trying--to help. Why does everyone avoid her food? It goes to waste, after all. She doesn’t touch it. Or... tries not to. 

She screams in her head, but her actual being is inaudible. Is she... she’s collapsed in a recliner now. Not quite reclining. She’s more slouching. And she wants to break something. To shatter something in her anger and in her wanting to break through, but she can’t. Her house is too perfect. So she picks the easiest target and drops the sweltering pills in her hand on the table but goes for some vodka instead. 

Jackie was in Spain now. Wee Jackie was at day camp. 

So Janice sits at home with the television playing a football game she cares absolutely nothing for. 

She sat, tearing away the soundtrack of the television. And then the idea of herself. Trying to water herself down. Maybe that was the vodka and tears. Diluting her to some sort of intangible, abstract substance. Janice felt like anyone could walk right through her. Or was that a side effect of being ignored?

_“She’s a little straight, Jean,” Clare said. That was when they had been reading about Catherine M._

They’d been astounded that Janice could look like she did. Like they didn’t expect that she could change the shape of herself. She didn’t really change all that much. Just peeled away a defence. Or maybe added another as she sat by Rab, her heart exposed. Her breasts a bit as well. 

But at least Jean got one thing right. Very straight. She was... just not very loved. 

Janice McCann felt the lack of love with every time she sits alone. Watching television. Eating meals. (Or at least pushing food around her plate and pretending.) Trying to phone Spain and getting no response, despite not having too much difference. 

Maybe that’s better. Jackie digs at her when they speak. Jabs her with the idea of her broken promise to him and to God. Well, he broke a promise too, she thinks. Though she is more guilty than bitter. Or perhaps both. He broke a promise to love her. His affairs (Rab told her) were proof. But Janice would never say a word. Or change a world with that. Because Wee Jackie loved his father. And Janice would never change anyone’s mind on that account. Let alone her own son’s.

Are her eyes closed?

She opens them, testing. And she thinks everything is a smidgen too bright.

Or maybe she’s drunk a bit too early. Noon suns are brighter than all others.

 _Just a nap,_ she thinks. _That’s gotta be better than... thinking._

That hurricane whispers to her as she remembers the party. And her friends who have left. Either geographically or spiritually. And she thinks, maybe she should toss the vodka and wine and everything into the bin. But then Jackie wouldn’t have it to celebrate. And she’s too preoccupied with the idea of making anyone else sad that she realizes--or, no... she _fails_ to realize--that she’s not only suffocating but also drowning now.

 _Here’s the truth,_ she admits to herself, _raising a glass of wine to herself. Here’s my confession._

I’ve sinned horribly. Not for the affairs, the drinking, the swearing, or any broken promises. I’ve sinned for abandoning the faith I’m supposed to keep sacred, next to my faith in God. I’ve lost faith in myself. I don’t even know if there’s any self to me left.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm cornering the market on sad stories about women with loveless marriages who drink wine and reminisce. Whoops. Please have a Janice McCann.


End file.
